


wreck my plans

by Willow_bird



Series: Take My Hand [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: (but like... really sexy kissing?), (more like NO communication), Andreil with cats, Andrew Minyard Loves Neil Josten, Getting Together, Grad School AU, Gratuitous use of italics, Jealous Andrew Minyard, Kissing, Love Confession, M/M, Miscommunication, Mopey Andrew, Muffins, Neil Josten loves Andrew Minyard, No Muffins were harmed in the writing of this fic, POV Andrew Minyard, Pining, Showing love with food, dumb boys in love, like - very very soft, this is soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:01:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28528137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willow_bird/pseuds/Willow_bird
Summary: Grad school was enough of a bitch without the trouble offeelingsgetting involved. When Andrew realizes that he has unwittingly fallen for one of his best friends he... panics a little bit. After all, it would be one thing if there was even a chance of Neil reciprocating. But that was impossible becauseNeilwasobviouslyin love withKevin....wasn't he?--In which Andrew Minyard eats his feelings and Neil Josten likes to cook.
Relationships: Kevin Day & Andrew Minyard, Kevin Day & Neil Josten, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Series: Take My Hand [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2089800
Comments: 68
Kudos: 488





	wreck my plans

**Author's Note:**

  * For [likearecord](https://archiveofourown.org/users/likearecord/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY MANDI!!!
> 
> Can I tell you? It was so SO HARD not to like, share snippets of this with you while I was working on it????? Because LIKE??? HELLO!?!?
> 
> Anyway ~ I hope you like it ^_^

Wednesday nights were movie nights. Which really meant that they were ‘Neil’s Naptime’ nights - not because Neil didn’t like movies but because Kevin was the one picking the movies and he always picked the ones that put Neil to sleep. Considering Neil usually ended up asleep _on Kevin_ , Andrew was about ninety-five percent certain that those choices were on fucking purpose. 

This movie night started like every movie night for the last two months: with Kevin picking the movie. 

Prior to the last couple of months, Kevin and Jeremy would rotate, but Jeremy - Andrew’s roommate - was across the world at some dig and Andrew was still banned from picking movies after he had accidentally subjected them all to the horror that was the 2019 Hellboy remake. 

(What? He’d heard it was _good_...)

Since Neil had never shown any interest in picking the movies himself _and_ he was the one hosting and feeding them, no one ever tried to make him. They were all over-worked, under-paid, starving grad students working on their respective PhDs (Andrew - Literature, Kevin - History, Jeremy - Archaeology, Neil - Linguistics) and every single one of them would probably do just about anything for a home-cooked meal. Except Neil, that is, who was the one who supplied them regularly without ever having to be asked. All you had to do was show up at his house and you’d be fed, it was that easy. Andrew would know, because he was there pretty much every single day. While Neil was just as busy and burdened as the rest of them, his rich uncle had set him up with a house and a car and an extra stipend when he came to America from England to complete his degree - and so felt those grad-hood burdens a bit differently. 

(That car, by the way, was a _fucking Maserati_. A Maserati that Neil _did not drive_. A Maserati that Neil had given _Andrew_ the keys to instead.)

“I brought three different ones to pick from,” Kevin was saying as Andrew finished loading the dishwasher. Neil cooked, so Andrew and Kevin split the cleaning. Kevin had already finished his chore of washing and putting away the pots and pans. Neil refused to allow them to put them in the dishwasher for whatever reason, but both he and Kevin knew better than to attempt to argue the rule. 

“Let me guess,” Andrew deadpanned as he put the soap in it’s cubby and snapped the dishwasher shut. “You’ve got some kind of documentary on some war no one cares about, a three-hour drama about the pressures a life of politics puts on family life, and a dramatized video biography about some dead musician Neil has never heard of.” He ticked the options off on the fingers of his free hand as he programmed the dishwasher and got it running. 

The look on Kevin’s face had him smirking when he looked over once the thing kicked on. “How close was I?”

“Two for three - how do you _do_ that?”

“I just know you, Day. Which one did I get wrong?”

“Well, technically _American Gangster_ isn’t about politics - but it basically is, so I counted that one. Then the next part of Lynn Novick’s _The Vietnam War_ , and plenty of people care about Vietnam, Andrew. The last one I’ve got is _The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou_.”

Neil popped his head into the kitchen. “We’re all set. Oh, _Life Aquatic_! Is that the one about the geese?”

“Not even close,” Kevin said with a sigh, but the affection in his tone was obvious. He crossed over and wrapped an arm around Neil’s shoulders and Neil instantly melted into the touch. 

Andrew had to look away. He covered it by washing his hands... again. He should be used to it, really - the easy, casual affection between Neil and Kevin. Up until right before the semester started they’d even been dating, after all - and they’d been together for almost a year. The break-up hadn’t seemed to do anything to pull them apart and Andrew was just _waiting_ for one of them to say they were getting back together again. It seemed inevitable to Andrew. Which would be fine, really. It _would_. Because Andrew absolutely didn’t have feelings for Neil. He didn’t.

He _couldn’t_. Because even if he _did_ it would just be another sad gay movie no one wanted to watch because it hit too close to home. Neil was in love with Kevin. Kevin and Neil were his _best friends_. It was too complex to even think about tangling it up even further with his own feelings (that definitely ~~didn’t~~ couldn’t exist). 

By the time Andrew had dried his hands on the towel clipped to the cabinet under the sink, Neil and Kevin had left the kitchen. Andrew gave himself another moment to get his chill back, then joined them in the living room. 

He expected to find the two of them already cuddled up together on the couch, but when Andrew crossed the hall into the living room no one had taken their seats yet. Kevin was over by the tv, trying to decide which movie to torture them with tonight, and Neil had detoured over by where the cats were cuddling. 

Andrew brought his cat, Margot, with him to occupy his cohort’s shared office several days a week - usually so that he could then bring her over to Neil’s when he came over at the end of the day. Margot, sweetheart that she was, made it very clear that she liked it better at Neil’s house than at their shabby little apartment. Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that she was best friends and Ultimate Cuddle Buddies with Neil’s cat, Iggy. Dinner at Neil’s was also superior to dinner at Andrew’s even for the cats - as Neil always bought the fancy medleys and fed them a different food each day of the week ( _“Come on, Andrew, you can’t tell me you wouldn’t get bored of the same awful little pellets every day. If we get to have variety, so should they.”_ ).

Iggy and Margot were currently cuddling on their favorite branch of the impressive tree-like cat tower Neil had bought when Andrew started bringing Margot over more often. It had plenty of space for them to curl up together and was high enough for them to see the whole room while also putting them at the ideal level for pets and kisses from Neil and Kevin. (Which wasn’t to say that Andrew _didn’t_ shower them with affection - he was just very well aware of their manipulation and so made an effort to at least hold out longer than the other two.)

Neil turned around and grinned at Andrew, then moved to flop down on the couch as he addressed Kevin. “You pick one yet?”

“I’ve narrowed it down. You really have not seen excellence until you’ve watched _American Gangster_ \- but _The Life Aquatic_ is fun? I’m kind of in the mood for fun.”

“Then put on the fun one. We can always watch ‘excellence’ another time,” Neil suggested as Andrew crossed the room to pay his tribute to the cats. Kevin was still debating his choices when he turned back and for a moment Andrew considered choosing to sit on the couch rather than the solitary armchair he usually picked when the three of them did movie night. If he sat on the couch, there would be no room for the full-bodied cuddles Kevin and Neil usually indulged in even if Kevin _also_ sat on the couch. If Kevin then chose to sit in one of the _chairs_ , then Andrew and Neil would have the whole couch to themselves and when Neil eventually passed the fuck out he might sleep on _him_ instead. 

This line of thinking was so fucking ridiculous that Andrew instantly cast it aside and strode purposefully toward the chair, sitting with a flop so decisive he crossed his arms. _No._ He was being stupid. Even if he and Neil sat together on the couch, that didn’t mean they’d end up cuddling. 

Kevin finished getting the movie set up and claimed the vacant bit of couch next to Neil. This lasted all of about three seconds before Kevin was taking up the _entire_ couch and Neil had made himself a nest between Kevin’s legs, snuggling against his chest. Kevin’s arm wrapped around him easily, but he wasn’t looking at the man he was holding - he was gesturing at the tv with his free hand, going on about something true or something that wasn’t as true as it seemed or… 

Honestly, Andrew wasn’t really paying attention. 

Instead, he was trying not to obsess about the way the hand Kevin _wasn’t_ using to gesture at the tv was slowly stroking up and down Neil’s arm. Instead, he was trying not to notice how Neil was already beginning to relax loosely against Kevin’s chest like a man returned home after a too-long journey. Instead, he was trying not to picture himself in Kevin’s place - his thicker arms around Neil’s relaxed frame, Neil’s head pillowed on _his_ chest. 

Kevin said something to Neil and Neil only mumbled sleepily in response, his words - if there had even been any - too slurred and muffled to be intelligible. Kevin laughed and tightened his arm, then bent his head and kissed the top of Neil’s, his lips brushing over an unkempt mess of auburn curls.

Easy affection like that was nothing new between the two of them - but for some reason seeing it now hit Andrew like a shotgun blast of broken glass. It cut deep and hit him hard enough that if he weren’t sitting down he felt like he’d have ended up on his ass. It was a _physical_ fucking blow, right in his chest - and when the initial impact began to fade enough for him to take a breath it fucking _ached_ And under that ache was _fire_. A burning, wicked, greedy fire that made him want to shout and storm and kick over the chair. He wanted to flip the table and call attention to the fucking _chaos_ suddenly wrecking havoc in his bloodstream. 

The sole cell of logic remaining in his brain managed to reason him out of this reaction. 

Instead, his body physically shaking, he stood up with as much false calm as possible. He felt Kevin’s eyes on him for only a moment, but then he was out of the room and slipping up the stairs. He went straight to the bathroom, where he locked himself in and splashed some cold water on his face because what the actual fuck was _that?_

It wasn’t like he had never seen Neil and Kevin cuddle before. For fucks sake, they had been dating for almost a year and Andrew had seen far more than sleepy snuggles in front of the fucking television without having this kind of a reaction. Not to say that it had never not bothered him, because if he was being honest with himself there was always a little bit of _something_ but… it had been a ‘something’ that had been easy enough to ignore. 

This? This was not. This was villain-origin-story level rage and what made it so fucking disturbing was that Andrew had absolutely zero right to it. None. 

He was angry at himself now, pissed off for having the reaction he’d had, and more than a little bit disgusted. He had no fucking claim on Neil, so what the fuck was all the jealousy about? Moreover, Neil and Kevin were his _best friends_ \- and they were so damn good together. They loved each other, and given time, Andrew was sure they’d find their way back together. Looking at how they interacted on a near-fucking-daily basis, Andrew would say that they were about eighty percent of the way there already. 

So what the fuck?

Andrew splashed some more cold water on his face and took a few deep breaths. He attempted a staredown with his reflection but lost, too upset to meet his own eyes for long.

“Get it the fuck together,” he grumbled, then took a few deep breaths. He went through one full breathing exercise, and then another. Then he went through the first one again, just to be safe. 

Finally, when he was mostly sure he had himself under control, he unlocked the door and went back downstairs.

He made it only one step back into the living room before that demon beneath his breastbone surged again. Because there was Kevin, smiling down at a sleeping Neil, running his fingers through his hair - long having fallen out of the sloppy bun he’d wrapped it in for dinner - and Andrew just… could not fucking take it anymore. 

Swallowing the beast down as best as he could, Andrew grabbed his coat. He shoved his feet into his shoes and silently crossed the room behind the couch to collect Margot from her perch. She whined softly at him for disturbing her nap, and Iggy batted at him in question, but neither made enough noise to disturb Neil - which was the only important thing. Cradling Margot close, Andrew pointedly ignored Kevin’s whispered _“Andrew?”_ on his way to the door. 

His hand hesitated over the key rack, though. Usually, Andrew drove the Maz during the week. He parked his Honda at Neil’s house Monday through Saturday, only taking it back home with him Saturday afternoon or evening when he finally went home after spending the day at Neil’s. It was rare for him to leave Neil’s place on a weekday in the Honda - not unheard of, but rare. 

Andrew briefly fingered the key of the Maz, and instantly thought of the look on Neil’s face when he’d given it to him. 

_‘It’s yours,’_ he’d said. And then he’d smiled in that way that made Andrew feel like the sunrise itself had been plagiarized from the soft glow in Neil’s eyes.

Throat tight, Andrew snapped his hand away and grabbed the Honda key instead. If anyone called after him again, he didn’t hear it as he left the house, locking the door behind him.

+_+_+_+_+

**Neil:** everything ok? you were gone when i woke up

_Missed Call: Neil_

**Neil:** alright, fair enough - kevin doesnt get to pick the movie next week  
**Neil:** is margot ok?  
**Neil:** andrew?

_Missed Call: Neil_  
_Missed Call: Neil_

**Neil:** at least tell me you made it home ok?  
**Neil:** andrew?

 **You:** im home.

 **Neil:** you took the honda…

+_+_+_+_+

Andrew sent an email to his supervising professor on Thursday morning that he was going to be out for the rest of the week and got a thumbs-up emoji in response, because grad school was a strange parallel dimension located somewhere between reality and that place overly literate people go when they get very, very high.

Neil tried to call him one more time, right around where Andrew knew his office hours were on Thursday afternoon. Andrew did not answer. 

Instead, he stayed in his very empty apartment and thought about all the things that had gone wrong in his life to bring him to this moment. As it was a very, very long list - it took about two days in between an in-depth rewatch of The Good Place and Happy Endings (which was finally on Hulu but was fucking out of order, because his life just could not stop kicking him when he was down).

There was no one moment where Andrew sat down and decided _‘Ah, yes, I am in the absolute worst position of a doomed love triangle and the only possible solution is to cut everyone off to protect my sad, lonely, tender heart’_ \- but then, that wasn’t really something that one really cognitively decides. It was just a thing that they _do_. Andrew even realized that he was doing it, but by that point there was no going back. Say a lot of things about Andrew, but he was a man who knew how to commit when it came to self-destructive behavior. 

So he did not answer the phone, and he did not reach out to his friends. Instead, he locked himself away in his apartment and paid more attention to Margot’s meals than his own. Those first couple of days went by in a bit of a blur, except for each time he thought about calling Neil - then he would slam unceremoniously back into reality and revisit that white-hot flash of jealousy all over again, and the cycle continued.

Before he knew it, though, it was Saturday. Saturday - which was usually Andrew’s fucking _favorite_ day.

Usually, on Saturdays, Andrew would wake up at Neil’s. 

He’d spend Friday night in the guest room (that Neil always corrected to _his_ room - _Andrew’s_ room - whenever someone dared refer to it as such) and would wake up somewhere between eight and nine to the smell of breakfast. He’d grumble about it being too early to be awake on the weekend and attempt to make fun of Neil for getting up at the asscrack of dawn to run, but the ridicule would fall flat due to a combination of his not-quite-awake brain just not having the wherewithal to produce quality judgement and Neil just generally not giving a shit about what Andrew thought. The fact that Neil had breakfast on his side was always the deciding factor and Andrew would begrudgingly acquiesce to the early hour. 

That was his usual Saturday morning routine. In fact, even with Andrew’s near-perfect memory, he couldn’t quite pin down the last time he’d woken up on a Saturday morning alone in his apartment like this. 

It was too quiet. 

Andrew attempted to relish in it. For _once_ he got to sleep in. He didn’t have to put up with the annoying clanging of pans, and who wanted to wake up to the smell of bacon anyway? _Overrated_. There was nothing good or comforting about dragging his ass out of bed when the time still read in single-digits, to find a man wearing running shorts in the kitchen, bopping along utterly off-beat to some annoying pop-punk song. There was nothing cute about the way he’d smirk and comment on Andrew’s bedhead. It was the coffee, not the way Neil always said ‘good morning’ like a magic spell, that woke Andrew’s blood like someone had put raw lightning in the espresso.

Margot made a few irritable ‘mrrp’s beside him and batted lightly at his nose. Then she dug her way under the pillow to do it again when he hid from her attempts to rouse him. Of course, Margot was used to getting fed with Iggy when Neil went out for his runs on Saturday mornings. Whatever time it was now was already several hours past breakfast for her. Really, she’d been generous giving him as much time as she had. 

“Alright, alright,” Andrew grumbled with a sigh, removing the pillow to sit up. He rubbed his hands over his face then stroked a hand down Margot’s spine before she got fed up with his dallying and jumped off the bed. Probably to go squeak imperiously from over by her food bowl. She was going to be disappointed in what she got. Instead of her usual Saturday morning gourmet cuisine she was going to have to settle for her usual weekday morning breakfast. 

When Andrew finally made it over to her and filled her bowl she stared at it for a full thirty seconds before looking up at him. How a creature with such a tiny, sweet face could convey so much _judgement_ with a simple look, Andrew would never understand. 

“That’s what you get today, Margogo.”

She meowed plaintively at him.

“I don’t know. Maybe never.”

_Mreh!?_

Andrew sighed. “Probably next week. I don’t know. The week after? If we never return I’ll see about getting you some of the same food for here.”

She grumped, clearly not satisfied but too hungry to argue with him anymore. As she dove into her food bowl, Andrew sighed and cast a miserable look around the kitchen. He did have _some_ food in the apartment. With Jeremy overseas on some ‘groundbreaking’ archaeological dig there was significantly less than usual, but even with Andrew taking most (all) of his meals at Neil’s or courtesy of Neil he still kept a meager stash of staples. He had just resigned himself to a can of cold Spaghetti-O’s when a knock pulled his attention away from where he was wrestling with the questionably-reliable can opener. 

Mangled can in hand, he crossed over to the door. If this was more of Jeremy’s stupid packages he was going to start encasing them in packing tape. Then, when Jeremy finally got back he was going to hide all the scissors and knives. Cheery fucker could open them with his goddamn teeth. 

Andrew opened the door. It was not the delivery guy. 

Neil blinked at him, looking from his face to the incriminating can of Spaghetti-O’s in his hand and back again. Andrew got to watch as Neil - _Neil Josten_ \- fought to control his temper. Neil took a slow breath in and then let it out. It shook, vibrating with all the tension he was trying not to unleash on Andrew. Which was… odd. Because Neil never held back - even with Andrew. If he was pissed, he was usually more than willing to let someone have it. 

When Neil finally spoke, it was only to say, “I brought food.” He lifted the reusable shopping bag Andrew hadn’t immediately noticed he was carrying. Then, because Andrew was still standing there like a jackass, he reached out and took the Spaghetti-O’s away from him, replacing the can with the handle of the bag. Andrew obediently curled his fingers around the straps, noting how Neil let go in the exact moment right before they would have touched. 

The bag was heavier than Andrew expected it to be, and when he looked down he saw that it was piled almost all the way to the top with food. Each container was labeled, too, detailing the contents. Something cowardly and tender in the center of Andrew’s chest attempted to scale his ribs, searching for a place to hide from the overwhelming rush of _something_ that was flooding the cavity around it.

“It isn’t poisoned,” Neil said suddenly, and Andrew snapped his attention back up at him. Neil’s expression was drawn into a terrible blankness Andrew didn’t understand. “I get that you’re avoiding me, but there’s no reason for you not to eat in the meantime.”

Andrew frowned. “I eat.”

“This” - he held up the Spaghetti-O’s with an expression of disgust - “does not count.” 

Knowing better than to argue food with Neil Josten, Andrew sighed and let it go. He looked down at the bag of food again, and spoke without looking up at the man still standing just outside his door. “Who says you are the one I am avoiding? Maybe I’m just sick of people right now.” There was no point in attempting to deny his avoidance at all, not when he’d suddenly cut himself off from everyone for three full days without notice or explanation. This wouldn’t be the first time he’d done this to the group as a whole - but it _was_ the first time he’d done it to Neil. 

Usually, even when the rest of the world made him feel raw or annoyed the shit out of him to the point where he needed a break - the idea of cutting Neil out too was just… too foreign to consider. 

Neil scoffed, because he knew this too. “If you’re going to treat me like a stranger, fine, but don’t treat me like an idiot.” Then appeared to rein himself in again. He took a deep breath and let it out before fixing Andrew with a hard stare. “You’re avoiding me. I know that’s what you’re doing. Are you going to talk to me about it?”

Not the demand: ‘tell me’. Not: ‘why?’. Just a simple question, answerable with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. 

Andrew knew what he should say. He knew he should tell him ‘yes’, or maybe at least a ‘not yet’. He knew this wasn’t something he could just… avoid forever. But when he opened his mouth the fear in his heart took control and what came out was a quiet, flattened, “No.”

He was still watching Neil, so he saw the way his throat worked as he swallowed around whatever words he might have wanted to say. That sight unsettled Andrew. It felt _wrong_. Neil didn’t censor himself, especially not around _him_. But now Andrew was building more barriers between them and Neil, not knowing what was going on, probably just thought they were boundaries he needed to respect. 

There was a tense moment of silence, then Neil gave a short nod and stepped back away from the threshold. He was still holding the can of Sphagetti-O’s. “Right. Well. If that changes, or if this ends - you know where to find me. Nothing’s changed on my end.” There was something in Neil’s voice that Andrew couldn't read, but before he had a chance to even try, Neil was turning and walking away. Andrew watched as he traversed the ten or so feet that led to the front door of the building. The can of Spaghetti-O’s met a decisive end in the trash can beside the mailboxes and Neil did not look back.

+_+_+_+_+

If Saturday was intolerable, it was nothing compared to the misery of Monday morning. Normally, Andrew would drive to Neil’s place, swap out his Honda for the Maz, and drive the both of them to Leaves & Beans. Neil would change his mind six times whether he wanted coffee or tea before settling on tea because coffee was ‘too pungent for a Monday’. Then they’d head to campus and go about their day.

Today, Andrew didn’t get coffee. He had used up the last of his reserve at the apartment and going to Leaves & Beans without Neil seemed like some kind of violation of trust. Instead, he dug out the box of stale tea from the back of the spice cupboard and brewed it in the microwave because he didn’t own a kettle. 

Andrew did not like tea. He _especially_ did not like stale Celestial Seasons Peach Tea. It was from three years ago when he’d bought it hoping to impress the pretty British guy who had then absolutely eviscerated him just for owning it. Thinking back, that was probably where this whole mess had started. Him, daring to offer Neil a cup of Celestial Seasons and having his ass handed to him over it. Andrew had thought that the rush of his pulse and the tightening in his chest at the time had been a mix between arousal and the general excitement at having a challenge like Neil around - when really it had just been the grip of fate. 

After draining the whole cup, Andrew rinsed it out and spent a good five or six minutes just staring at the small tower of washed tupperware he’d assembled at the edge of his counter. On Saturday morning, Neil had brought him a bag filled with food - three meals each for Saturday and Sunday, plus extra desserts. What Andrew probably _should_ have done is throw it all out and order really shitty take-out each day. Instead, he’d sat on the kitchen floor eating directly out of the tupperware like some kind of modern day cave-dwelling hermit man trapped by his own self-imposed isolation. 

No one was around to call him out on it except for Margot, though - which she did with a heavy dose of feline judgement. 

Not long after the onset of their friendship, Neil had taken it upon himself to provide most of Andrew’s meals. It wasn’t something they had ever talked about. Neil had never offered any more of an explanation than ‘you take shit care of yourself’ and Andrew had never bothered to argue it. It just… _was_. It had started with Neil always sending Andrew home with leftovers and then one day there had been a note on the door of his cohort’s shared fridge that said ‘ _Andrew, you better fucking rinse out the tupperware_ ’. When Andrew had opened the fridge there had been a lunch waiting for him, courtesy of Neil. A lunch had shown up for him every single day since then. 

Despite Neil’s gift of food on Saturday, Andrew did not expect to find a lunch from him in the fridge that Monday. It was probably reflex alone, or maybe a self-destructive desire to see the spot _usually_ reserved for his lunch left empty, that had him still opening the door at all. He told himself that he wasn’t checking to see if there was something waiting for him. He told himself that he was just going to see if he could sneak someone’s leftovers, or pick through the others’ lunchboxes to steal their desserts just to be an asshole. 

He opened the fridge, preparing for a blank space - only to find that there was a brown paper bag with his name on it in an achingly familiar script sitting right where it always was. A sandpaper grip wrapped three times around his windpipe and squeezed, tightening further with each passing second as he stared at that plain brown paper bag. When he finally could not take it anymore, Andrew snatched the bag out of the fridge. He let the door swing shut as he turned away to return to his desk in a way that hopefully wouldn’t look like he was hurrying. The rough, scaly grip of _too much feeling_ was back as soon as he opened the bag to find not one meal - but two (and two slices of pie). 

A scrawled note sitting on top of the tupperware said: _If you really want me to stop, I will. But I always make too much anyway. - N_

Clever, because asking him to stop would actually require Andrew _talking_ to Neil, and after the disaster that was Saturday morning he definitely wasn’t anywhere close to _that_. 

So Andrew took his lunch (a chicken salad with extra ranch, baby carrots, a yogurt, and a slice of pie) and ate it silently at his desk. When he was done he rinsed out the tupperware at the sink in the kitchenette and packed it back in with the dinner Neil had included (stir-fry with extra white rice, and a slice of pie) to take home with him at the end of the day. 

The day dragged on after that. Neil did not come visit him during his afternoon break. Dan attempted to press about his mood only once when she came into the shared office while Andrew was grading, but backed off quickly enough when the only response she got was a seething glare. She must have told Matt that he wasn’t in the mood, because while he received about eight different gifs from the Women’s Lit grad - distributed between texts and emails - he didn’t attempt to approach or engage him in any kind of real interaction. Kevin didn’t try to text him until the day was already done and Andrew was back at home, getting hungry again but procrastinating heating up the dinner Neil had made for him. 

**Kevin:** Where are you?

 **You:** go away

 **Kevin:** No. Why are you moping? Should I send Neil to get you? Be warned, he’ll probably ride his bike.

 **You:** no

 **Kevin:** Does that mean you aren’t coming over tonight?

 **You:** no

 **Kevin:** No you *AREN’T* coming over or no you *AREN’T NOT* coming over, meaning that you *ARE* coming over?

 **You:** i hate u

 **Kevin:** No you don’t - and I’m very concerned that you text like that when you’ve got a Masters in English Lit.

 **You:** i h8 u sm go suk a c==3

 **Kevin:** I literally cannot read what that says.  
**Kevin:** Are you coming over or not?

 **You:** not.

 **Kevin:** Fine.

And that was that - at least for Monday. 

Tuesday, which was usually a decent day all on its own, turned out to just be a wetter version of Monday, thanks to the heavy rain they ended up getting throughout the day. It took way more self-control than Andrew thought should be necessary to keep himself from texting Kevin or Matt or _someone_ to make sure that Neil hadn’t been an idiot and ridden his bike to campus in the rain. 

Normally, it wouldn’t be a problem because Andrew always made sure to pick Neil up on bad weather days. Operating almost completely on reflex, Andrew had actually gotten halfway to Neil’s house that morning before he noped right out of it, pulled an illegal u-turn, and went straight to campus instead. He ended up getting there way early and while this should have been a good thing - considering there was plenty of work to be done, both for his own studies as well as the classes he was actually teaching - he still accomplished absolutely nothing and spent the extra time just staring at the rain, tapping his pen against the desk, and thinking about Neil. 

Another paper bag with two full meals was waiting for him in the fridge at lunch time. This time, the note said: _I told Kevin to stop bothering you, but you know how he is._ Andrew tried not to smile as he read it, picturing the look on Neil’s face - his nose crinkled in annoyance but his mouth twitching with amusement. It was a face he made a lot around Kevin, and one of Andrew’s favorites. 

Andrew ate his ham and swiss sandwich in the quiet office with only the rain pattering against the window for company. 

At the end of the day, Andrew took his empty tupperware along with the dinner Neil had prepared (spaghetti with his special meat sauce, garlic bread, an apple walnut side salad with extra dried cranberries, and two chocolate cupcakes that were filled and topped with peanut butter buttercream) and left without saying goodbye to anyone. He did not go find Neil at his office or the library, he just went straight down to where his Honda, not the Maz, was parked. Then, alone, he went home. 

It was a wet, lonely, too-quiet drive where it normally would have been filled with the presence of Neil in the passenger seat. Neil didn’t always feel the need to talk, so it very well may have been just as quiet of a drive - but it would have been a different kind of silence. With Neil there, silences were warm and comfortable. They wrapped around Andrew and cushioned him with this level of… _knowing_ , of understanding that didn’t require speech to convey. The silence Andrew had been marinating in for the last fucking _week_ at this point was… cold and hollow and uncomfortable. It was an old silence, one from his youth that fit him now like too many rubber bands around his wrist, cutting off his circulation. 

Dinner that night was eaten sitting on the floor in front of the couch with the tv off. He let Margot lick the sauce right off his fork because he felt bad that he was depriving her of her Neil-and-Iggy time, too. 

By the time work was done on Wednesday, Andrew was so drained by his own melancholy and the weight of his brooding thoughts that he couldn’t even make it all the way to the couch before he gave up on being upright. As soon as he had the door shut and locked behind him, Andrew dropped his bag on the floor then spread himself out beside it, face down like a corpse in the mud. 

He rolled onto his back when Margot came over to investigate with a bemused squeak. She prodded his cheek then jumped onto his chest, curling up right in the center and beginning to purr. Andrew sighed and stroked a hand down her back. 

“What am I going to do about this, Margs?” he asked forlornly. 

Margot chirped at him and gave a very slow blink. 

“Yeah,” he said with a sigh, “you’re right.” He tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling. “Suffer.”

+_+_+_+_+

Kevin showed up unannounced on Friday afternoon. Usually, the both of them would be at Neil’s by this time, and it was very weird for them to be here - without him. But Kevin didn’t offer much of an explanation when Andrew answered the door. He just pushed his way inside before turning an accusatory look at Andrew.

“Something has been bothering you and you need to tell me what it is,” he said with a pointed stare. Andrew sighed, locked the door, and moved to sit on the couch. 

Ah, yes. Typical Kevin. Imperious and certain, and also - unfortunately - not incorrect. This could not go on forever and he needed to figure out a way to go back to being able to ignore his feelings for Neil - because it had now gotten to the point where he (clearly) could no longer deny they existed, at least to himself. He doubted he would be able to eradicate those feelings even if he tried, so ignoring them was by far the best option. After all, even if the whole Neil-Kevin thing wasn’t a thing (and it was), Neil would still be a bad idea. 

“Attempting to add ‘psychic’ to your resume now, too, Day?” Andrew drawled back as dryly as possible. Just because Kevin was right didn’t mean he had to comply. Neil Josten wasn’t the only asshole with a propensity for being difficult.

Kevin narrowed his eyes like he really _could_ read minds and knew exactly what Andrew was doing. 

“No,” he said slowly as he walked over to sit down in the large armchair Jeremy usually occupied when he wasn’t galavanting around the whole damn world. “But I’ve known you for a long time. I know you like to work shit out on your own - and, to be clear, I mean ‘ignore it until you’ve buried it so far into your subconscious you think it’s gone away but will surely resurface at an inopportune moment in the future’ - but you’ve been avoiding everyone for over a week now. You’ve been avoiding _Neil_ for over a week - which, you’ve got to admit Andrew, is kind of out of character for you.”

Andrew put all his ‘fuck you’ energy into a severe glare.

Kevin, the bastard, just sighed. “Tell me what’s going on. Even before the vanishing act you’ve been a little… squirrely lately. It’s weird.”

Mildly offended, Andrew snorted and flipped him off, but at Kevin’s look he rolled his eyes and agreed, “A little… _Lately_.” Because he refused to leave an opening for such a ridiculous descriptor to be used against him more regularly. If anyone was remotely _anything_ like a squirrel it was probably Neil. 

“It’s something with Neil, right?” Kevin continued. “You wouldn’t specifically shut him out if it wasn’t. Come on, if _anyone_ can commiserate with you about that tiny asshole it’s me. I’m the guy who dated him.”

And there it was. The second Kevin said it he seemed to realize he’d hit the nail on the head without Andrew having to say anything at all. His eyes widened and he leaned back in his chair, mouth dropping open in a slack-jawed gape that he quickly corrected as he tried to schleff off his surprise and pull himself together. 

Then, shattering all of Andrew’s expectations, he said, “Wait, you mean to tell me that you are _just now_ figuring out you’re in love with Neil and you’re avoiding him because you’re having some sort of crisis about it?”

The blatant accusation in Kevin’s tone was so offensive that Andrew felt justified with both a heavy scowl _and_ a double-fisted edition of the fuck-you salute. Kevin remained unaffected. He leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees, looking him straight in the eye. 

“Tell me,” he said evenly, “that this is not news to you. Andrew, I’m begging you. I need to know that you aren’t really that stupid.”

“Oh fuck off, Day.” Andrew snatched up the throw pillow from the other end of the couch and hurled it at him with enough force to knock off Kevin’s glasses. The next couple of minutes were filled with a frenzy of cursing and the whoosh of the pillow being snapped back and forth as Kevin hurled it back and Andrew caught it only to whip it right back at him again. This continued until Andrew overshot and Kevin ducked, the pillow thumping harmlessly against the far wall instead of the irritating asshole’s face. 

“So you’re really telling me that you had no idea?” Kevin asked as he picked up his glasses and put them back on. The strong square frames only seemed to enhance the judgement in his bottle-green eyes. 

“Don’t be stupid,” Andrew grumbled. He sighed. “I knew I was feeling… something. Lust, yeah. I mean - look at him.” He and Kevin shared a look and the other man nodded in understanding as he relaxed back in the chair again. “But Neil isn’t interested in casual sex so that was never an option.”

“I know dating isn’t your usual thing, but it’s not like you’ve never done it before…” The question was in Kevin’s tone even if he didn’t ask it outright. 

“Dating some random guy I happened to have chemistry with and didn’t hate is very different from dating Neil.”

“Why? Because you’re already in love with him?” Kevin challenged.

Andrew rolled his eyes. He thought about throwing something else at him, but the only thing within reach was the clicker for the tv and he’d already broken one this month. Then, to add insult to injury, there was a soft squeak and Andrew looked over to see Margot hop up onto Kevin’s lap. She gave him an even stare as she curled up on just one thigh, her little paws tucked under to make her an awkwardly balanced little cat-loaf, protecting Kevin from any further physical retaliation. Kevin, rightfully looking like he had been blessed, stroked a careful hand down her spine a few times before tossing a smug smirk back at Andrew.

Andrew flipped him off again. “I hate you.”

“No you don’t. You just hate that I’m right.”

The tangle in Andrew’s chest that he had been desperately trying to smother for the past week expanded suddenly. It burned a bit hotter with frustration and rage, bleeding bitterness onto the back of his tongue that was strong enough to gag on. Andrew grit his teeth and attempted to swallow it down. His voice was still rough as he bit out, “It doesn’t _matter_ , Day. Anything I feel or don’t feel about Neil doesn’t _matter_. It is never going to happen, and even _if_ it were a _possibility_ it definitely isn’t a fucking _option_.”

“Why not?” Kevin asked, and instead of flippant or challenging, his tone was serious. His gaze was heavy as it landed on Andrew, weighted with care and honesty - with an openness that Andrew didn’t feel like he deserved. 

He had to look away. 

Kevin gave him about fifteen seconds before he asked again. “Why, Andrew? Why isn’t Neil an option? _Talk_ to me. Help me understand.”

Andrew’s throat burned as it worked to stretch around the barbed chunk of regret lodged in it. The shame that curdled his gums and dried out his tongue. 

Still, Kevin deserved this answer from him. 

“You still love him,” Andrew began. It probably wasn’t the best place to start, but he needed to begin with this truth. He needed Kevin to know that their friendship had gravity, that even after what he had done - he still respected Kevin’s heart. “I will not come between you again. What you and Neil have still might work itself out and it is not my place to get in the middle of it, my own… _feelings_ be damned.”

Kevin was very still and very silent, his brows were drawn into a sharp frown - but it was one that Andrew recognized as confusion, not anger. “Again?” he asked.

There was little point in avoiding it now. Andrew nodded. “Yes. Since it was my fault you two broke up in the first place.” He kept his own tone as flat and neutral as possible, not so that Kevin would think he didn’t care, but so that Kevin knew he was being serious. 

This time Kevin’s brows shot up in surprise before creasing again in deep confusion. He studied Andrew, then said slowly, “Tell me… what is it you think you did that caused us to break up?” 

The phrasing of that question drew Andrew a little bit out of his melancholy, because it implied that there was more to the situation that Kevin thought Andrew didn’t know about. Personally, Andrew found that hard to believe. After all, he and Neil had talked about it - a lot - before Neil had broken up with Kevin. Sure, it had been one conversation, but it had been a _four-hour_ conversation. One that had been far too self-serving on Andrew’s end. 

Andrew took a deep breath, then sighed. Margot must have heard something in the sound that she didn’t like, because she hopped off of Kevin’s lap and pranced over to the couch, hopping up first to the cushion and then to the back of the couch to be able to drop onto his shoulder. She was still so incredibly tiny that she could nestle into the crook of his neck in almost exactly the same way she had done as a kitten. Andrew turned his head to be able to give her a kiss before returning his attention to Kevin. 

“I asked him why he was with you. It was none of my business - but I was bitter, and lonely, and I wanted Neil. I was feeling bitchy and petty and wanted to see if I could get him to complain about you to make myself feel better.” 

The knowing smirk on Kevin’s face made Andrew scowl at him. “Fuck you, I’m being honest and genuine here.” Kevin lifted his hands in surrender then gestured for him to continue. 

“It worked, by the way. He had plenty to complain about. But it was all shit I’d already heard him say to your face so…” Andrew shrugged. He sighed and lifted one hand to scratch at Margot’s cheek, turning to kiss the top of her head again. His next words were slightly muffled in her fur. “We talked about past relationships and I asked him if he’d ever been attracted to more than one person at once. I wanted to hear him say yes but I didn’t expect him to.” Andrew didn’t need to say why - both he and Kevin were aware of Neil being demisexual and what that meant. Andrew had just _assumed_ that meant that once he formed that bond and attraction kicked in that he was just… focused on that one person, either for forever or until it naturally went away like what happened in a ton of other relationships, no matter what the sexuality of the persons involved were. 

“But he did,” Kevin filled in. The understanding in his friend’s tone made Andrew want to hit something. Kevin shouldn’t be _understanding_ here. He should be fucking furious. 

“Yes,” Andrew hissed. “He did. And I told him that maybe that was a sign that whatever he had with _you_ wasn’t enough for him. That he needed to explore his options. Two days later you guys had broken up and you _both_ were fucking miserable and it was _my_ fault. I thought that you two would end up getting back together soon enough but you never did. Even though you’re over all the time, cuddling all the time, together _all the time_ \--”

“And you’re _jealous_ ,” Kevin cut in, like it was a fucking revelation. He sat up straighter. “You’re jealous of all the time I’m spending with Neil, even though we aren’t together anymore.”

The lash of Andrew’s glare should have been scorching enough to cause blisters, but Kevin wasn’t even paying attention. His eyes were wide as he stood up and started to pace. 

“That’s it, isn’t it? You’ve been jealous of me but you think you have no right to be, and so you’re pushing everyone away - especially Neil, because the reason you’re jealous of me is because you think I have him in a way you can’t.” His words kept speeding up, like he was working through some kind of revelation, untangling a puzzle that had been confounding him and was only just now starting to make sense. 

Andrew scoffed. “No one ever _has_ Neil, regardless of who he dates or fucks. He’d be too much of a handful. I bet he bites, too.”

“He does,” Kevin agreed, almost offhandedly, and thought this was neither the time nor the place to be thinking about it, of _course_ Andrew had to think about it. Before he could ask for clarification there, Kevin turned back to face him and continued with a question. “Did you ask him who?”

“Who, what?”

Kevin frowned at him. “Andrew, when you asked him if he had ever been attracted to two people at the same time, did you ask him _who?_ ”

“No.” Andrew glared at him. No, of course he hadn’t asked. Because he’d wanted Neil to say _him_. He’d wanted Neil to say that even though he was with Kevin, Andrew was the one he wanted. He was afraid that if he asked, though, Neil would say someone else - or that it had been in the past. Or, potentially worse, that it really _was_ Andrew. And if Neil reciprocated… Andrew honestly didn’t know what he would do if Neil reciprocated his own wanting - he was too used to wanting what he couldn’t have that actually _getting_ it seemed cursed. 

“And after me and Neil broke up, did you ever talk to him about it?”

The look Andrew shot at him was apparently answer enough because Kevin gave a huge, overdramatic sigh and dropped himself back into the armchair. He tilted his head back and took a deep breath then sat up straight and fixed Andrew with an imperious stare that made Andrew want to throw another pillow at him. 

“Alright, first thing’s first,” Kevin said. “ _You_ are not the reason Neil and I broke up. Or, well, not the only reason.” He waved a hand in dismissal. “Neil and I are not getting back together. We _both_ agree that we are better off as friends.”

“Friends who cuddle all the time,” Andrew amended dryly.

Kevin rolled his eyes. “Yeah, actually. And you know I don’t just cuddle with Neil. I’m just as much all over Matt and Dan. But Neil doesn’t have the same comfort levels as I do with everyone else. There are only two people he feels close enough with to let them touch him, and one of those people also has a very solid personal bubble he doesn’t want to broach. Since he also likes to be touched and cuddled when he needs comfort, I told him he could always come to me.”

Jealousy opened up it’s manic yellow eyes, baring its teeth in the pit of Andrew’s belly again. “Who else is it?” he asked, maybe a bit too forcefully.

Kevin opened his mouth, shut it again, then took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jesus fucking Christ no wonder this has taken so fucking long.” Before Andrew could demand an explanation to _that_ , Kevin pushed himself to his feet with a shake of his head. He put his glasses back on and jabbed a finger at Andrew. 

“ _You_ need to talk to Neil. Tell him what is going on. Be honest with him, Andrew.” His expression softened in a way that made Andrew want to squirm, so he very pointedly stopped himself from doing so. “And stop blaming yourself. Seriously. Neil and I have already worked it all out. Do I still love him? Of course - but not in that way. If you ask him the same question I bet you fifty he’ll say the same thing. We broke up because something wasn’t working and yeah, maybe your conversation with Neil helped Neil to see that - but I can promise you he wasn’t the only one thinking about it.”

Andrew frowned. “Why did _you_ want to break up with Neil?” He felt weirdly defensive. With how miserable the both of them had been for weeks after the breakup, he’d thought Kevin hadn’t actually wanted it and Neil had just been deep in the throes of regret, too stubborn to take it back. The idea that Kevin had actually _wanted_ to break up with Neil was a foreign one, and made him almost a bit angry to think about - especially when he thought about Neil still potentially being in love with Kevin. 

Kevin gave him an unimpressed look. “No need to get the knives out, Andrew. I wasn’t leading him on or wherever your brain is going.” He sighed, pacing again. “I love Neil, but he doesn’t give me what I want… what I think I _need_ in a relationship. I want to feel… cherished, I guess.”

“And you don’t feel cherished with Neil?” Andrew didn’t want this turn into a fight. He really didn’t. Especially not this fight. But his hackles were raised at even the _implied_ suggestion that Neil was somehow a shitty boyfriend. _Neil_. Self-sacrificing Neil, who opened his home to all of them and kept them fed. Who regularly went out of his way to make sure that Andrew ate _real food_ at least twice a day. Who had given him the keys to his car, to his _home_ , and said that he was always welcome. Who always saw so much and who always respected any personal boundaries set in place. Who pushed, but always stopped when he was told to. Who _trusted_ , and only wanted to be trusted in return. 

_That_ Neil. Kevin was saying _that Neil_ didn’t cherish him? Fucking _bullshit_.

Kevin must have heard the warning in Andrew’s voice because he paused his pacing to turn and face him. From there, he must have seen the storm brewing in his eyes because he lifted his hands in a plaintive gesture. He didn’t seem offended or angry, though. Not even wary - just… a little bit exasperated. 

“The way I need to be? No. Different people show their care in different ways, Andrew - you of all people know that. I _know_ that Neil loves me. I know he cares about me. When we were together, I _knew_ that - but I didn’t feel it. Not the way I _needed_ to. It wasn’t any fault of his or of mine, it’s just the way that we’re both wired. I didn’t even realize it until… well, let’s just say that me and Neil had similar reasons for ending the relationship.”

“And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?” A fucking straight answer would be nice.

This time, Kevin looked annoyed and his voice was a whip-sharp snap. “We both fell for someone else. The difference being that while I actually plan to move forward and test the waters as soon as Jeremy returns from his dig, both Neil and the person _he_ likes are so fucking stubborn they just keep shoving their heads further up their own asses instead of pulling them out to see what is right in-fucking-front of them.” Kevin gave him a pointed look that he was supposed to get something more from that other than the fact that, apparently, Kevin had the hots for Andrew’s own fucking roommate.

“ _Jeremy,_ Kevin? Really?” Then: “Neil fell for someone else?”

Kevin threw up his hands and turned around. “I’m done with this.” He marched for the door, pausing with his hand on the handle to glare over his shoulder at him. “I don’t want to fucking hear from you again until you talk to Neil. I’m going out of town this weekend to visit my parents, so you won’t have to worry about me being over at his place. I recommend you talk to him by the time I fucking get back.”

Andrew _did_ pick up the clicker and chuck it at him this time, but it only bounced off the wall, the batteries flying in one direction and the body of the remote in the other. Kevin just gave him a dry look and Andrew flipped him off. “Fuck off, Day.”

“Gladly.” Kevin pulled the door open, but paused again before he walked through it. He sighed, his shoulders sagging before he turned another too-gentle look in Andrew’s direction. “And Andrew? You really don’t have as much to worry about as you think you do. Talk to Neil. Then remember I told you so.”

Then he was gone, leaving Andrew with too many things to think about.

+_+_+_+_+

There were few things Andrew hated more than admitting Kevin Day was right about something. Coconut, the stale frost crystals that invade your ice cream in shitty freezers, people who only drink half a can of soda and then open a fresh one because they let the first go flat or get warm. It was a short but traumatic list.

Unfortunately, while Kevin was probably wrong about plenty from his weird little pep talk or whatever that was supposed to be - he was right about one thing. 

Andrew did need to talk to Neil. He couldn't just avoid him forever, and even if he could… he didn't _want_ to. It had been a week, and Andrew _missed_ that little shit. He missed his sharp teeth and his utter apathy toward anything that wasn't his niche, his wit and the easy way they could be around each other with no expectation other than to just coexist. He even missed the stupid way Neil would stare at him sometimes, not like he was trying to figure him out or judging him - just… to look.

So yeah, he needed to talk to Neil. He just didn't know what he was going to _say_. 

Andrew thought about giving it another night and texting Neil in the morning, seeing if he'd be free in the afternoon for him to come over. He thought about maybe even waiting until Sunday and just showing up for Sunday dinner with the group like always, like nothing was wrong. It wouldn't be too hard to just… apologize for being an asshole or say he had just needed to work through some shit. Neil would accept it, even if he didn't believe it. Andrew could talk to him on one of their smoke breaks and then they could go back to normal. 

This was a good plan. It was a logical plan. He could fix this shit and move forward, regardless of whatever Kevin thought he was saying when he came over. It was what he should have done after the first few days. Nothing had to change… right?

And yet, here he was. Friday night, maybe a whole two hours after Kevin had left his apartment, sitting in his car and staring up at Neil's house like it was a doomed ship headed for a new land that he needed to be on. Maybe it was the way Kevin kept bringing up this other person that Neil felt close with, who he implied he wanted to be touched by. This person Neil liked. Why he ultimately decided to break up with Kevin. 

Look. Andrew wasn't fucking stupid. He got that Kevin was implying that _he, Andrew Joseph Minyard,_ was that person. Well, he put that together after Kevin had left and he was able to methodically think through the conversation that had just happened. 

Which was _exactly why_ Andrew should just let the dust settle and try and push things back to normal. If things changed between him and Neil… Andrew did not like the unknown. It tempted with hope and beat you with heartbreak when it was too late to turn back. He had no way of knowing if Neil _actually_ felt anything more than friendship for him and, if he did, if he then _wanted_ anything more than what they already had. 

The only way to know that, though, was to ask. And maybe Andrew hadn't learned his lesson or maybe this time the hope was just that bright and tempting. Or maybe - _maybe_ \- a part of him that had healed more than he had ever thought it capable just trusted what he and Neil had built so far. Maybe he trusted it enough to believe that no matter how this conversation went they could still come out on the other end unshattered.

Andrew tightened his hands around the steering wheel, then forced them to relax one finger at a time before he pulled them free entirely and shut off the car. Unsure of how this conversation was going to go, he hadn’t brought Margot along - but right now he was wishing that he had. At least her excitement at getting to see Neil and Iggy would have been a potential distraction. Instead, he was showing up on Neil’s doorstep, empty-handed and alone, which only drove home the cold reality that it was very possible that was how he was going to leave as well. 

Instead of using his key, Andrew used the doorbell for what was probably the first time. Even in those first few weeks, he’d never shown up and rung the doorbell. He had arrived with Kevin, or with Neil. Then Neil had given him a key and…

The door opened. Neil was standing there, barefoot and flushed, in a pair of shorts and a hoodie too broad in the shoulders to be his. Andrew didn’t need to read the name or number to know that it was his own hoodie from his days as an undergrad college athlete. The mess of Neil’s auburn curls were pushed back from his face by a bright orange bandana, leaving no shield for the way his eyes widened in surprise at the sight of who was on his doorstep. An instant later, those eyes hardened and shut down. Andrew could see the way his throat tightened in a swallow, the tension lifting his shoulders before he forced them down again. 

“Andrew. Hey. You… rang the bell.”

“I wasn’t sure using the key would be…” Andrew took a breath and rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Neil, can I come in?”

Neil stared at him for a long moment, and Andrew thought he was going to say ‘no’. He didn’t say anything, though - he just stepped back and opened the door wider so he could come in, the invitation wordless.

Iggy peered out at him from the entryway that led to the kitchen, then padded out when he saw who it was. He chirped imperiously, then in evident confusion as he wound his way around Andrew’s legs, sniffing and pawing at his shoes and then his pant leg. “Sorry, Iggs. Margot stayed home tonight. It’s just me.”

Not believing him, the sleek black cat wound around his feet a few more times, then went to sniff at the door before returning to him when he realized that no, Margot had not joined him. Iggy gave a disapproving meow, then gave them his tail as he went back down the hall. Neil and Andrew both watched him go before looking at each other at the same time. 

Andrew’s heart thumped twice, closer to his throat than his chest. He tried to swallow it down, then nodded toward the kitchen. “It smells good in here. What are you making?” 

It smelled fucking amazing, actually, but they both knew that he was stalling. He half expected Neil to call him on it, but the other man just narrowed his eyes before turning to lead the way down the hall and into the kitchen. “Muffins,” he said unnecessarily - because it was quite obvious that he’d been baking muffins. In fact, he had probably been baking muffins non-stop since he’d gotten home that afternoon. The counters and the kitchen table were full of them. From where Andrew had stalled just inside the kitchen he could identify at least three different kinds of muffin. One that was clearly chocolate; another that looked like Neil’s famous cinnamon-sugar muffin; and a third that - if Andrew didn’t know any better - he would think was blueberry. 

He moved to the counter and picked up the mysterious muffin. After a brief inspection, he looked to Neil and frowned. “You hate blueberry.”

Neil glared at him, and the venom in the curl of his lip and the sharpness in those blue eyes was so familiar that Andrew almost _smiled_. He stopped himself before the traitorous expression could escape, though, and set down the muffin. 

“We need to talk,” he said instead, and wondered why Neil looked like he’d just been gutted. He watched as the other man carefully shut down, locking away whatever he was feeling to instead face him with an impassive mask. It didn’t make sense. It was almost like Neil thought that _he_ had done something wrong. That _he_ had caused the distance between them. 

“Yeah,” Neil agreed, and his voice was too soft, too vulnerable under the flimsy shield of indifference he was trying to protect himself with. Then, before Andrew could begin with an apology or an explanation, Neil said, “I’m honestly surprised it took this long. I thought you would say something as soon as you read it.”

Andrew paused, frowning. “Read what?”

“The… letter?” Neil said slowly. “The stupid piece of paper that started this whole thing? The reason you’ve been avoiding me for a fucking week and a half…?”

“What letter?” It didn’t seem possible that he could have forgotten something of big enough potential significance that Neil thought it was the cause of Andrew pulling away from him, but Andrew wracked his brain anyway and came up with nothing. 

Neil frowned now, pushing away from the counter where he’d positioned himself while Andrew had been taking in the sea of muffins. “Andrew, last Wednesday - the _letter_ I stupidly left in your room? I woke up after the movie and you were just _gone_. No goodbye, no anything. Kevin said that you’d gone upstairs for about ten minutes then just left without a word. He had figured you were just bored or annoyed or something, but then the radio silence - and when I went into your room I saw I’d left the letter there and so I figured...”

Andrew shook his head. “No. I never went into the guest room-”

“Your room,” Neil corrected, like he always did - even when they were… were they fighting? Whatever was going on.

Andrew waved it off and continued. “I had just gone upstairs to go to the bathroom.” Well, to brood in the bathroom - but Neil didn’t need to know that. 

“So then why did you leave?” Neil asked.

Or maybe he did. That was why he was here, after all. It was tempting to keep asking about the letter. He wanted to know what was so terrible about it, what was so offensive that Neil thought it would have Andrew running off and avoiding him like the plague for over a week before coming to ‘talk’ about it. The deflection would have been welcome, too, in addition to satisfying his curiosity. But he’d put this off for too long.

Andrew took a deep breath, then let it out - and with it, the truth. 

“I was jealous,” he said - and his voice was surprisingly steady. Neil was just frowning in confusion, like he couldn’t connect the dots, so Andrew elaborated. “Seeing you and Kevin together. I was jealous. I wanted to be the one with you. I was angry with myself about it, because it wasn’t my place to want that - it _isn’t_ my place to want it.”

Now Neil’s eyes were widening in surprise. Andrew couldn’t let himself stop or he wasn’t sure if he would be able to pick it back up again, so he continued. 

“If it were just attraction I’d fuck it out with a one-night-stand and call it done, but it is more than that and it has been for a while. You were with Kevin, and then you broke up - basically after I told you to break up with him, which I only did because I was being…” Andrew took a deep breath. He did not like this. He did not like _saying_ all of this out loud, hearing it - knowing that Neil was hearing it too. But it was too late to take it back. 

Before he could dig himself any deeper, Neil interrupted. 

“I thought you didn’t do relationships.” There was a question in Neil’s tone and Andrew fought down the grimace that threatened to rise to his lips - because, yes, he had told Neil that. Despite having dated here and there over the past few years; mostly day-after brunches with hookups to see if there was a potential for something more, but that never panned out because Andrew was too busy thinking about blue eyes and a sharp, wicked smile he was sure he’d never get the chance to taste. 

“I don’t,” Andrew said. Then sighed and amended. “I didn’t. I try not to. I… may have lied when I told you that.”

Neil didn’t need to ask the question out loud to hear it ringing in the tense air between them. 

Andrew opened his mouth to respond to it, not really knowing what he was going to say, but Neil cut him off again - this time by just raising his hand. 

“You’re saying,” he began, “that you have avoided me for a week and a half because you… _like_ me?”

“It is a little more complicated than that,” Andrew argued, but even to his own ears the defense sounded weak. “I thought you were still in love with Kevin and that you two were going to get back together. You are my best friends. I didn’t want to fuck everything up. I never _planned_ any of this. The feelings and the want and...” Andrew made a frustrated sound. “You just…”

“I _what?_ ” Neil hissed, and Andrew wasn’t sure he had ever heard Neil sound dangerous in that particular way before. It was part low, simmering rage, part bewildered indignation.

Andrew sighed. “You wreck my plans. All of them. Every single time.” Which was terrifying, but also somehow made Andrew _feel_ even more deeply for Neil each time it happened. 

Neil must have heard the confession under those words. He _had_ to have - because he paused, went so still he didn’t even appear to be breathing. Then he let out the breath he had been holding and took a slow step forward. “You _like_ me,” Neil said again - but there was a hesitation, a weight around the word ‘ _like_ ’ that scared and thrilled Andrew at the same time.

“What is this, seventh grade?” he quipped back before he could stop his stupid mouth.

Neil’s glare was sharp as knives and a second later the only thing that saved Andrew from being beaned in the eye by a fucking muffin was his own quick reflexes. He blinked, looking from the muffin that had almost left him blind (or decapitated - the fucking thing had been moving _fast_ ) to the livid man who had hurled it at him.

“You mean to tell me,” Neil began again, and Andrew heard the roll of fire in his voice. 

(It should say something about him that the sound put a thrill in his blood that in most men would register as _fear_ but in him was just plain, lizard-brain arousal.) 

“...that you up and left and shut me out for _nine fucking days_ because you _like_ me?” Another muffin came at him, whip-quick and backed with pure, unadulterated _rage_. Andrew caught that one, too. Then, because he clearly wasn’t thinking, he met Neil’s eyes and took a bite right out of the top of the muffin. Mm, chocolate.

The sound Neil made was raw frustration, sharp and guttural and peppered with rage. Andrew had to drop one of the muffins to catch the next one and ended up just using that muffin as a shield to bounce the other muffins away as Neil kept hurling them. He made sure to take more bites of chocolate muffin in between blocks as Neil continued his assault, because that muffin was fucking _delicious_ and if this was to be his end he was going to make Death By Muffin utterly worth it. 

“Kevin and I-!” _Muffin._ “-broke up!” _Muffin muffin._ “-because we fucking _both_!” _Muffin!_ And that one made contact, just barely glancing off Andrew’s shoulder. “-fell for someone else, you-!” _Muffin._ “-fucking!” _Muffin._ “-idiot!” _Muffin muffin muffin!_

Neil paused and caught his breath, a muffin in each hand. He pointed the chocolate one at him threateningly and Andrew widened his eyes slightly, chewing slowly - as he’d just taken another bite of muffin himself. “Which you would fucking know if you had just _talked_ to me. You never asked why I had broken up with Kevin. If you had, I would have told you. I’d have told you that me and Kevin talked - that he said he needed something else out of a relationship and we figured out that I did too. We broke up because Kevin and I were _friends_ and we were falling for other people. It was sad, but it was good. And Kevin was excited about talking to Jeremy! Then fucking _Jeremy_ had to up and vanish like two fucking days later for his stupid last-minute ‘discovery of the century’ on the other side of the fucking _planet_!”

Andrew swallowed slowly. It was tempting to take another bite of muffin, just to buy himself a bit more time - but he had a feeling that if he did, Neil was really going to lose it, so he took a deep breath instead. He thought about Kevin telling him the same thing - about how he and Neil had agreed to split because their relationship wasn’t working the way they needed it to, because they were both falling for different people. He thought about Kevin more or less _telling_ him that the person Neil had fallen for was _him_. 

Then he thought about the look on Neil’s face when Andrew had refused to tell him why he was avoiding him. That terrible blankness. 

Andrew recognized it now, or at least he thought he did. Neil thought Andrew’s distance was a… _rejection_. He’d thought that Andrew had somehow figured it out and was putting distance between them because - like he’d told Neil before - he was not interested in relationships, and casual sex would never be possible between the two of them if Neil’s feelings were already involved. 

Instead of saying any of this, Andrew asked, “What was in the letter? The one you thought I read.”

Neil’s shoulders tightened, his jaw clenched, and Andrew thought he might tell him to fuck right off. The rebuff never came. Rather, Neil took a deep breath and put down his muffins. He held up a finger to ask Andrew to wait, then he walked past him and out of the kitchen. The stairs creaked slightly as he jogged up them, light on his feet even when heavy with a million unsaid things. Andrew picked at his muffin as he waited, trying not to wonder and assume what was written in the letter, trying not to put himself in Neil’s head when he thought Andrew had read it and then shut him out because of it. 

It only took a couple of minutes for Neil to return. Andrew thought he might hesitate to give it to him, but he didn’t. It wasn’t in an envelope. In fact, it was still attached to the legal pad he’d written it on. 

Andrew took it and read it. Then he read it again even though every word was already committed to memory. He read it a third time, not to double-check or try and find something else hidden between the slanted script of Neil’s characteristic scrawl - but in an effort to just… allow himself to believe that it was real. 

He now understood why Neil had started hurling muffins at him when told that the reason Andrew had been avoiding him was because of Andrew’s own attraction. Neil had spent the whole week thinking Andrew was avoiding him because he’d read a fucking _confession_ that Neil hadn’t intended for him to even see. 

As Andrew read the words over and over again, he had to wonder what might have happened if he _had_ gone into his room and found the letter that night. If, instead of running away in a fit of jealousy he had just… stuck it out. He would have eventually gone into the room, he would have eventually seen the letter. It was possible that when he woke up Neil would have remembered it was there and done away with it before Andrew could find it, but it was just as possible that he wouldn’t have. That Andrew could have stumbled across it just like Neil thought he had.

What would he have done?

Andrew took one last skim of the letter, then set it on the kitchen counter. (Well, he set it on top of some muffins that were on the kitchen counter. Even with Neil using a decent number of them as ammo to commit his assault, muffins still occupied most of the counter space.) With his hands free, he turned back to Neil and lifted a hand near his face - then pressed it gently to his cheek when the other man didn’t swat it away. He could feel the way Neil shivered at the contact and _instantly_ wanted to touch him even more, but he restricted himself to just that touch for now.

“You really aren’t in love with Kevin?”

“Jesus fucking Christ-” Neil began then stopped himself. He took a deep breath, let it out, then met Andrew’s eyes. “No. I am not in love with Kevin. I _love_ him, yeah. But as a friend. We just happen to be friends that cuddle a lot, which isn’t going to change no matter what happens between-”

“It does not need to change,” Andrew interrupted. He moved a step closer, brushed his thumb over Neil’s cheek, watched the way Neil’s pupils dilated as he registered the narrow margin of their proximity. “But I also want to touch you - and if you let me, I will.” Andrew watched Neil’s Adam’s apple bob with a swallow. He saw the slight flush of pink rise to his cheeks, the way his lips parted slightly as he took his next breath. 

Neil let that breath out on a soft, tight laugh. “Andrew, I don’t know if you’ve picked up on this from the letter or not, but I want you to touch me about ninety percent of the fucking time.”

“What about the other ten?” Andrew asked, curious but also wanting to be aware of any boundaries as they began to wade into this unchartered territory between them. 

“Oh, it’s a mix between wanting to slam your face through a few layers of drywall and wanting to suck your dick. Usually at the same time. It’s complicated.”

The flash of heat in his favorite menace’s eyes and the cheeky twist of his smirk was just too damn much. Andrew’s hand slid from cupping Neil’s cheek to the back of his head, pulling him in for a kiss that started off soft but ended with Andrew getting Neil pressed against the wall with nothing but a whisper to a forgotten god between them. It was because of the noise Neil made, that catch of breath that vibrated just lower than a hum, too strong to be a question. Or maybe it was how Neil instantly leaned into the kiss like a man who’d been praying for rain for too damn long, his pleas finally answered. 

By the time they broke apart it was only because they both needed to gasp for breath. Then Neil gasped out, “ _Andrew_ ” - and Andrew had to kiss him again… and again. 

And again. 

Neil’s hands were in his hair, tugging him closer. They cupped his face as they caught their breath. Rough, calloused thumbs brushed over Andrew’s cheeks and Andrew didn’t know which of them was trembling but he thought maybe it was both of them. It was Neil’s breath, he knew, that shook as it glanced off his lips - though he was only certain of this because he was holding fast to his. He needed to hold his breath - it was the only way to keep from panting, the only way to clearly hear the way his heart was pounding in his ears. He wanted to memorize the sound, count each beat that separated him from the moment where he didn’t know what Neil tasted like. 

“Andrew,” Neil sighed again, and this time Andrew nipped lightly at his lips. This pulled a _wonderful_ sound from low in Neil’s throat and so Andrew did it again, chasing the sound along his jaw, scraping his teeth on a few days’ worth of stubble Neil normally didn’t permit. Andrew accepted the burn it gave his cheek as penance as he nibbled a path down to his throat. Neil made another sound, lower, deeper - definitely not a sigh but not quite yet a moan - and tilted his head to the side to grant him more access. Andrew was more than happy to oblige, and when he pressed their bodies together, locking Neil to the wall, it was to find that Neil was just as hard as he was. 

A deep, primal rumble of approval dragged its way out of his chest, a sound he hadn’t even known he was capable of. Neil’s hands had slid back into his hair and gripped lightly now, flexing and then releasing like he was actively trying not to pull. 

Fuck that, Andrew _wanted_ him to pull. He wanted, no - _needed_ to know how riled Neil could get. 

Andrew slid his hands down Neil’s shoulders, fingers curling to clutch at his sides, pulling him closer even as he pressed him into the wall with his hips. He drank down every shiver, catalogued each catch of breath, committed every sigh and sound to memory. Then, just as his lips found the rapid thrum of Neil’s pulse, his hands found bare skin, slipping under the hem of his shirt to graze his waist. 

At the touch, Neil gave a gasp, going suddenly still. Andrew instantly froze, pulling his hands back and his mouth away from Neil’s neck. 

“Don’t..! Don’t stop. Andrew...” Neil gasped softly. “Want. I want..”

Andrew raised his hands again, this time using both to cup Neil’s face - and _fuck_ did it feel good to touch him. He rubbed his thumbs over his cheeks, pressed his forehead to Neil’s, and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and felt Neil do the same, mirroring him. “Tell me.”

“I want to touch you,” Neil whispered. He said it like confession, a secret to be forgiven, a sin absolved by holy words alone - but one he wasn’t sorry for. Not anymore.

Andrew nipped lightly at his lips again, maybe in admonishment and maybe just because he wanted to. Neil’s mouth parted for him and a small raspy sound caught in his throat, something part-groan and part-growl, a sound of want and need and frustration that Andrew wholeheartedly sympathized with. 

“Then touch me,” he murmured back, leaning their bodies together again. 

“Andrew…” he sighed, and Andrew kissed the breath as it fluttered off his lips. He followed the path down the other side of Neil’s jaw now, but when he reached his neck he tilted up instead to drag his nose just behind his ear. He sighed, and felt Neil shiver.

“Touch me, Neil.”

Andrew brought his hands back down, never breaking contact as they learned the mold of Neil’s body from shoulder to hips. He slipped his hands under his shirt and with a ghost of a touch he teased the bare skin over his waist until Neil gave in and dug his fingers back into his hair to drag him in for a kiss. 

That kiss turned into another, and Neil’s hands found the breadth of his shoulders. Impatient, greedy fingers tugged at his shirt and then that was gone and Neil’s hands were on his skin. They didn’t grab, though - they didn’t pull and grip and claim and use. They stroked. They caressed. They cherished as they explored and Andrew went weak beneath them. Somehow Neil lost his shirt, too, and they ended up on the couch, Neil on his back with Andrew hovering over him as he kissed his way down the battleground on his chest - evidence of a former life in ruin. 

Andrew tread carefully here. He had his own scars, and he knew that just because a chapter was closed did not mean its narrative was gone for good. But Neil never flinched from him. He never tensed or turned from him. Instead, he sighed and arched up into his kisses. He bowed and trembled as Andrew gave quiet worship to his strength and all the while, Neil’s hands never left him. They pulled at his hair or rubbed over his shoulders, his neck, his back. It got to the point where Andrew was no longer sure if he was getting high on the taste of Neil or the touch of his fingers hot like coals dragging hungry patterns over his skin. 

It was Neil who pulled back first, who gasped, “Andrew, we should--” and didn’t finish the sentence because Andrew made sure he didn’t need to. That didn’t stop Andrew from leaning in and kissing him again, though. It didn’t stop him from resting his head against Neil’s neck as he caught his breath, willing his pulse to slow and the fire in his blood to chill the fuck out. He knew he should probably put some distance between them, maybe go upstairs for a few minutes, even. Jerk himself off and get it over with to help get rid of the tension.

But he just… he wasn’t ready to put space between them yet, even knowing that they had to stop before they got too ahead of themselves. 

Neil’s hands relaxed, one of them moving to sift lightly through Andrew’s hair, gently stroking, as the other curled loosely between his shoulder blades, scratching soothing circles over his back. Andrew took a deep breath in through his nose, saturating himself with the scent and nearness of _Neil_ , then let it out again. 

“I’ve wanted to do that for so fucking long.” 

The words so clearly echoed his own thoughts that it took Andrew a minute to realize Neil had been the one to say them. He huffed a laugh and shook his head, smirking when both those actions made Neil shiver under him again. It was tempting, but he managed to keep himself from nipping at the very attractive line of Neil’s collarbone. Instead, he took one more deep breath, then pulled back with a groan until he was mostly upright, on his knees over Neil. 

The sight of him, stretched out, flushed and shirtless and so _fucking_ beautiful beneath him almost had Andrew leaning back down again. But Neil was right - they needed to stop, or at least slow down, at least for now. 

To give himself something to do and help him pull himself together, he leaned back more until he could roll past his feet and sit on the opposite end of the couch. Neil took an extra moment to finish catching his breath, then he sat up too. The smile on his face settled something in Andrew’s chest that had been off-center since he had stupidly stormed out of this house more than a week ago. 

“I missed you,” Neil said then. “A lot.”

And because Andrew had decided that he was going to try to be less stupid going forward, he said, “Me too.”

Then he opened his arms in offering. It took Neil only a moment to understand, then that smile turned to a grin and he was moving forward on the couch. Just a few heartbeats more and Neil was in his arms, slotting against him like the missing piece come home. Andrew bowed his head and sighed, then nuzzled at the top of Neil’s head before planting a kiss on his stupid, beautiful, wayward curls - now completely free of the bandana that had previously kept them in place. Andrew wasn’t sure where it had gone or even _when_ it had been lost - but he was glad it was gone. Now he could brush his nose against the soft strands, could run his fingers through it, could tease it into small braids and feel the texture of them across his lips if Neil would let him...

It took a little bit of maneuvering, but Andrew was able to snag the remote from the coffee table as Neil got himself settled comfortably against his chest. Andrew was a lot shorter than Kevin, but he was broader and softer in the chest and middle than Day would ever be, and this, apparently, made him a superior cuddler (at least, this was what Neil said when Andrew commented about not being his usual pillow). Neil pulled the throw blanket off the back of the couch to cover the both of them while Andrew picked some nature show from one of the streaming services.

Probably because of the incredibly heated prequel to their impromptu snuggle session, it took a bit longer than usual for the soothing images and the gentle cadence of the narrator’s voice going on about things Neil would never, ever, care about to begin to lull him. When it did, though, and Andrew felt Neil’s body fully sag against him, his breath evening out, he let himself smile. He let himself bow his head and kiss the top of Neil’s. 

He let himself sigh and murmur quietly, “Hey Neil?”

The sleepy, only half-conscious _“Hnn..”_ Andrew got in response made him smile again. 

He rested his cheek against the top of Neil’s head and closed his eyes. He breathed in the scent of the man in his arms. He let himself know that this was real - that it wasn’t just a wish or a _maybe_ , that he could _have this._

And he said, “I love you too.”

+_+_+_+_+

_Andrew,_

_I can speak six languages and can’t tell you how I feel. I think I’m afraid of fucking things up. I also think maybe I’m being selfish for wanting anything more than what I already have. It feels weird to want things like this. I don’t really know what to do with myself._

_Here’s what I do know:_

_**X** All I ever want is to touch you. Sometimes I have to sit on my hands to make sure that I don’t - because even if you’d accept the touches it feels wrong to try and take something you wouldn’t even be aware you’d be giving me.  
**X** I don’t even think of it as my car. It’s your car.  
**X** For the last fucking time, it’s not the guest room - it’s your room.  
**X** The pancakes you love so much are the first thing my Aunt Stella taught me how to make. The secret ingredient is vanilla. I think you know that, but you still pretend you don’t and ask about it every time.  
**X** When I’m around you the rest of the world falls quiet and I can finally catch my breath.  
**X** I always have to catch my breath when the light hits your eyes.  
**X** This house didn’t start feeling like home until you had a key to it.  
**X** I lay here on this stupid bed and miss you when you aren’t here.  
**X** I want to kiss you.  
**X** I want you to kiss me.  
**X** A lot.  
**X** Other things too.  
**X** A lot of other things.  
**X** It’s honestly kind of embarrassing how much I fantasize about you.  
**X** It isn’t even all pervy stuff. I think about what it would be like to hold your hand or lean against you on the couch or wake up together in the same house on days other than Saturdays.  
**X** Saturdays are my favorite fucking days because I usually get you all to myself.  
**X** Every time I see you I want to tell you that I love you, but I’m afraid of what will happen if I do._

_I don’t know if I’ll ever have the balls to show you this letter. I didn’t even really mean to write it. I know you care about me and I hate that I’m getting so greedy that I want more than what you already give - because Andrew you give me so fucking much._

_I hope you at least realize how fucking special you are. How special you are to me. Even if I can never tell you any of this. Even if best friends are all we can ever be._

_You’re my favorite._

_Love,  
Neil_


End file.
